Fall Retreat

I'll be away from the parish Wednesday, October 25, through Monday, October 30, on my annual fall retreat at St. Gregory's Abbey, Three Rivers, Michigan.  With thanks for your prayers.

Twentieth after Pentecost

Matthew 22: 15-22

Nineteenth after Pentecost

Matthew 22: 1-14 (Proper 23A2):  Dress for Success!

Eighteenth after Pentecost

Proper 22A2 Matthew 21: 33-46

It’s Monday of Holy Week—that’s the setting of our New Testament reading, Matthew 21.  The time left is very short.  The storm is gathering.  Jesus at the Temple, the rabbi from backwater Galilee on center stage at last.  It doesn’t get any more prime time than this.  His last extended public teaching, in debate with the preeminent religious scholars and leaders of the nation and with a large crowd of Jewish pilgrims in attendance, as they have come from every corner of the world to observe the Passover in Jerusalem.   Jesus begins to speak with two parables, two short, symbolic, allegorical stories that share in common a concern for, a focus on, a Vineyard:  The  parable we had as our gospel reading last Sunday, the Parable of the Two Sons, who are called by their Father to work with him in the Vineyard,  and as we heard this morning the Parable of the Unruly Tenants , who abuse the privilege of their stewardship of the Vineyard.  Jesus is being poetic, I guess we could say, but not obscure.  Everybody listening understands, and our Old Testament reading of course reminds us, that the vineyard is a deep and rich Biblical symbol.  Israel as the Vineyard of the Lord.  God’s Nation, God’s Kingdom.

So a father calls his two sons to come work along with him in the Vineyard.  The first son seems to react impulsively in the negative:  he says “no, father, I’ve got better things to do,” but then comes to himself, reconsiders,  repents, rolls up his sleeves, and goes out to join his father.  A pattern that might remind us of the other “Parable of the Two Sons, that we usually call the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  The Son who gets lost, but who finds his way home.  The second Son this morning on the other hand gives a positive answer right off the bat, says all the right words, very enthusiastic, everything you’d expect from a “good son.”  Perhaps we remember the other Son in the Prodigal Son parable as well.  A similar profile.  But in any event, when the appointed hour comes, the Second Son flakes out, goes back on his word, decides he’d rather spend the day at the mall.  He never shows up as he promised, to work with his Father in the Vineyard. 

Jesus asks, “Now, which of these did the will of the Father?”  And the Priests and Pharisees there in the Temple hear how Jesus words the question and concede the obvious point:  “the First son, of course.”  The Second Son was the one who gave the right answer when the Father called, but that’s really beside the point.  Certainly better to say the wrong thing but then to change direction and do the right thing, than to go in the other direction.   What you do in fact matters more in the end than what you say you’re going to do.”  Lots of people know how to “talk a good game.”  But actions speak louder than words.  Kind of reminds me of that sad quotation, that “everybody talks a lot about Christianity; somebody should give it a try.”  The allegory of the parable isn’t hard for anybody in the crowd.  When you want to know who actually is working with the Father in the Vineyard, who is tending God’s people, you don’t go by who was talking a good game, or by superficial markers, like offices and titles and credentials. You don’t listen to promises and formal declarations.   We see politicians all the time after all, even here lately in Western Pennsylvania, who talk the talk and say they stand for something—but when the newspaper gets hold of text messages and e-mails show themselves to be living in another world altogether.   It’s sad to see always, but not really much of a surprise.  You get the feeling that people will say whatever they think they need to say to get ahead, no matter what they really think or intend to do in their real lives.  Which son does the will of the Father?  You look at what actually happens, who actually gets there, who rolls up his sleeves and comes alongside the Father in the heat of the day.  That’s what counts.

The second Vineyard parable follows, our reading this morning, and it pretty much traces  the same pattern, though it gets drawn out a little farther.   Not just about being all talk and no action-- but here about outright, wild, no-holds-barred, active, hostile rebellion.   This parable contrasts not two sons but two groups of tenants.  The first Tenants sign the lease and agree to all the terms of their relationship with the Owner of the Vineyard.  They enter into solemn covenant with him and move onto the property. But then (just like that second Son in the first parable) they break their word and ignore the terms of their agreement and promise—and  they go even further here, way further, and resist even in the most extreme and violent and murderous ways every urgent and sincere effort by the Owner to restore the covenanted relationship.   I love their traditional name, the “unruly” tenants.  Seems kind of an understated term.  Seizing the Landlord’s property.  Attacking and murdering the landlord’s servants when they come to collect the rent.  Even then killing his son.   I guess that’s “unruly.”  They cross every possible line of good relationship in absolute, resolute defiance.   Jesus asks, “What will the Owner of the Vineyard do?”  What are the inevitable consequences of this kind of willful disobedience and rebellion?  The priests and elders of the Temple fill in the rest of the story here also with the obvious reply.   “He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their season.”    The Landlord will take the Vineyard from those who have abused his trust, and present it to new Tenants, good and faithful tenants, who will live in right relationship with him. 

Jesus isn’t exactly being subtle here, obviously.  What happens when those who are supposed to be God’s chosen ones, his stewards, caring for his Vineyard Israel—when they turn away from him, even become his enemies?  Thinking about this setting here in the Temple, really a breathtaking moment-- the language of the Vineyard, the verbal sparring with the religious authorities, the cheering of the crowds, who were probably pretty much the same folks who had welcomed Jesus the day before with palm branches and cries of “Hosanna to the Son of David.”  Crisis and confrontation.  And so, verse 45: “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was talking about them.”    Who are the sons who go through the motions of obedience, who dress the part and mouth the words, but who in their heart choose to walk their own way rather than in the way of the Father?  Who are the Tenants,  betraying their covenant of stewardship and taking what was not theirs to serve their own desires?     If such people imagine in their profound denial of reality that they are going to be able to get away with this, if they think the Father is asleep, if they think he won’t act to set things right—well, they’d better think again.    “When the chief priests and the Pharisees head his parables, they perceive that he was talking about them.”

The scene hangs there in Holy Week, as the clouds gather, tensions rise.

To stand near Jesus is always and inevitably to enter a space where things that have been hidden are made plain.  Our prayer every time we come near him in the Holy Communion: “to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, from whom no secrets are hid.”  It may be possible to skate along in denial for a season.  It may be possible to pretend that God doesn’t see us, doesn’t know what’s in our hearts.  But to stand in the presence of the Son, in the face of his Cross, is to come to a place of inevitable clarity. The lights come on.   A place where costumes and scripts and outward show are all stripped away, and where we are able to see for ourselves what is true.   About ourselves and about the world around us.  What is going to last, what is passing away. 

That was true on Monday in Holy Week, as it became pretty easy to tell who the friends of Jesus really were.   And who would stand with his enemies.   We know that story more or less by heart.  People were going to be showing their true colors.  A lot of the folks in the crowd here at the Temple are cheering Jesus, the great hero whom they greeted with Palm Branches and cries of “Hosanna” yesterday.  But by the end of the week they’re going to be shouting “Crucify him, crucify him.”  And in reality it is I suppose always true, in any time, in any generation, to figure out where we are in relationship to him.   

Back in the 15^th chapter of Matthew, before this last journey had begun-- when some Scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem had journeyed out to the Galilee in an effort to discredit him—perhaps some of the same people who are at the Temple with him in this scene--Jesus challenged them by quoting Isaiah 29, “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”   

And it is our heart that he cares about, first, last, and always.   First Century, or Twenty-first Century.  That really is the point of these two Holy Week parables.   And it’s what’s on the line this morning.  That makes us uncomfortable, but pretty much we knew what we were getting into when we came in through those doors on Hampton Street this morning.  In the 18^th chapter of Luke Jesus asks, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”  The question Jesus is asking in these parables. It’s about the relationship—about seeing in, past the curated surface, the right words—about where our hearts are, whose our hearts are.  Where we are in our relationship to him. 

O God our Father, open our eyes and our ears, by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may hear you when you call us each by name, that we may hear your call and invitation to come beside you in your Vineyard, as your children, your sons and daughters, and that we may answer  with all our heart and mind and strength, not only with our lips but in our lives--and that we may as worthy tenants and good stewards of your bounty attend to your word and know and welcome with joy and love the One you send to us, your own son our savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God.

Seventeenth after Pentecost

Dan Isadore, on Philippians 2: 1-13